A Black and Bitter Lump
Swallow the inner elixir of a Single-Horned Black Blood Serpent, and you could expect two effects.
The first was an increase in mana, same as the inner elixir of any spirit beast. The second was a poison-related trait, acquired at a fixed probability.
A 90% chance for the C-rank Thousand Poisons Immunity—a trait that kept you from being poisoned by anything at all, and an enormous boon when fighting monsters that wielded venom.
The remaining 10% granted the D-rank Poison Resistance. It couldn't prevent poisoning outright the way Thousand Poisons Immunity did, but it slowed the rate at which your health drained while you were poisoned.
In both rank and effect, Thousand Poisons Immunity was the better prize—but either way, you couldn't lose.
So who should eat it? The answer didn't take long to arrive.
"We just split it three ways and each take a share."
I divided the pitch-black elixir into three exactly equal pieces, then looked back and forth between Go Hyeon-woo and Seo Ye-in. "One share each should do it."
"I am grateful beyond words for the chance you grant us," said Go Hyeon-woo. "And yet, in another sense, I fret that the elixir's potency may be thinned."
"It does drop a little, but not enough to worry over."
Taken whole, the odds stood at 90% for Thousand Poisons Immunity and 10% for Poison Resistance. Split three ways, they became 50% for Thousand Poisons Immunity, 30% for Poison Resistance—and a brand-new 20% chance of walking away with no trait whatsoever.
Go Hyeon-woo hummed in thought. "Hmm... If the fortune is to pass among several of us, a three-way split is certainly the fairer course."
"And the odds are still nothing to scoff at."
"Even so, should we fail, the loss would be anything but trivial. Are you quite certain about this?"
He seemed to want to press the entire elixir into my hands. Which would, admittedly, have been the surer bet. I appreciated the sentiment, but I fully intended to push the three-way split through.
A meaningful smile settled on my lips. "Hear me out to the end. I've still got a trick up my sleeve."
"...!"
Taken alongside another elixir, the success rate climbed even higher—a synergy effect, in other words. And as it happened, we'd come by just such an elixir recently: the one we'd won after smoking out the master of the Geumyeong Merchant Guild from his hiding spot inside the deadly formation.
I drew a small wooden case from my inventory and flipped it open, and the golden pellets inside glittered up at me.
Go Hyeon-woo's face lit up at once, the very picture of a man itching to slap his knee. "Haha! I see my worries were for naught—you had it all planned out this time as well."
"I don't split things three ways without a plan."
I did keep a steady eye on Go Hyeon-woo and Seo Ye-in's growth, true, but had the efficiency been truly miserable, I'd have asked for their understanding and taken the whole thing myself. This time around, sharing just happened to be the best deal for everyone.
"And once the elixir enters the equation, how do the odds shift?" Go Hyeon-woo asked.
"Thousand Poisons Immunity rises to 60%, Poison Resistance to 35%, and the failure rate drops all the way to 5%."
"Odds well worth the wager, I'd say."
Better than even odds of the best outcome, and a failure rate of a mere 5%. And yet Go Hyeon-woo and I both faltered for an instant—because every time either of us went to gamble on probability, the 'future tea house owner' surfaced in our minds, the one who drew nothing but blanks.
"Let's just not think about them."
"Seconded."
Dwell on it too long, and we might just invite the bad luck ourselves.
Absorbing an elixir's energy efficiently required breathing meditation immediately after ingestion, and the finest possible environment for that was, without question, the Mana Cultivation Room. And so we made our way to the Training Center.
"Brother Kim, Young Miss Seo—I pray you both good fortune."
"Make sure you come back with that Thousand Poisons Immunity."
Go Hyeon-woo, holder of a Season Pass, headed for one of the Special Meditation Rooms, while Seo Ye-in and I took a standard Mana Cultivation Room.
At the door, I gave Seo Ye-in her instructions. "Eat it, then run your mana through one full cycle. Message me when you're done."
"......."
Seo Ye-in looked down at the pitch-black shard in her hand, poked it gingerly with a fingertip, and touched it to the tip of her tongue. Her pupils dilated a fraction.
"...Bitter."
It was about the same reaction she had to anything spicy—which told me bitter, too, was off the menu for her.
I slipped into my best imitation of Ahn Jungmi's voice. "Agassi, you must take your medicine even when it's bitter. Everything good for you is."
"Bitter..."
"If you eat it, you get Thousand Poisons Immunity. Your mana goes up, too."
"......."
An unexpected snag, for Seo Ye-in and me alike. If a single lick drew this much resistance, actually putting the shard in her mouth promised to be far worse. I found myself understanding Ahn Jungmi's suffering a little better now.
Still, this was far too good an opportunity to toss aside. Poison resistance was something you stockpiled whenever you could get it, because sooner or later, enemies who fought with poison would keep showing up.
And so I resolved on special measures. "Thirty minutes of the Kim Ho Pillow?"
"...!"
Seo Ye-in's head turned toward me, interest plain on her face. But then some thought seemed to catch up with her, and she slowly shook her head side to side. For a second I wondered if she was truly refusing the Kim Ho Pillow she wanted so badly—but she wasn't. She raised her hand and extended two fingers. She was opening negotiations.
This time, I was the one to shake my head. "Two hours is far too much. Let's settle on one."
"...Deal."
"Then you eat all of yours. And make it a nice, clean full cycle of mana."
"Confirmed."
With one hour of the Kim Ho Pillow agreed upon, we each stepped into our own room.
I settled into the exact center, took out my third of the inner elixir along with several Gold Spirit Divine Pills—and tipped the whole lot into my mouth in one go.
It is disgustingly bitter.
That was the very first thought to surface. A grand parade of every bitter, acrid, fishy flavor under the sun came crashing over my tongue. The Gold Spirit Divine Pills melted away smoothly the moment they touched my mouth and slid down my throat, but the Single-Horned Black Blood Serpent's elixir was so thick and clinging it refused to pass at all—which meant I got to savor the bitterness with remarkable evenness from start to finish.
Only after I'd finally forced the elixir down did my stomach begin to churn, as though I'd eaten something spoiled.
This is exactly the part that matters, though.
Mouth clamped firmly shut, I set the mana in my core rotating with calm, even focus. It felt as if some thick, sludgy thing were seeping outward through every inch of my body—deeply unpleasant—but I paid it no mind and gave myself wholly to the circulation.
As time passed, the unpleasantness gradually receded, and in its place a formidable strength hummed through my whole frame. Before long I sensed it was done; when I lifted my eyelids, a notification was floating in the corner of my vision.
You have acquired [Thousand Poisons Immunity (C)].
Well, look at that—the 60% came through.
Every moment of that agonizing bitterness had been worth it. Had I landed in the 5% and come away empty-handed, I'd have cried foul until the end of days.
Mouth still tastes like a swamp, though.
This time, at least, I was going to chase it with something sweet. I was still mulling it over, waiting a little, when Seo Ye-in's message arrived.
I tidied my space and stepped out of the Mana Cultivation Room, and almost in the same breath Seo Ye-in walked out of the room next door—tongue poking out just slightly, exactly like the emoticon.
A spark of mischief got the better of me, and I reached over and poked her tongue with a finger. A few seconds behind the beat, Seo Ye-in tilted her head lazily to the side.
I might have teased her further, but the foul film in my own mouth kept grating on me, so I let it rest. "Come on. Let's go get something sweet."
"Sweet."
We headed down to the Training Center's first floor and each pulled a sweet drink from the vending machine. I gulped mine down, then let a mouthful linger on my tongue, and slowly the sweetness drove out the bitterness that had taken up residence there. Seo Ye-in, meanwhile, drew her still-protruding tongue back in and stared at me, unblinking.
"One hour of pillow."
"Right. A deal's a deal."
I nodded readily. The elixir's bitterness had genuinely defied imagination—filthy enough that even I, who rarely complained about anything I ate, found it vile. Heaven only knew what it had been like for Seo Ye-in. She'd eaten every last scrap and absorbed it exactly as instructed, so an hour of the pillow was hardly a steep price.
By the time we'd drained our drinks, a message from Go Hyeon-woo arrived.
Going strictly by the odds, I'd expected at least one of us to draw Poison Resistance, but as it happened, all three of us had landed Thousand Poisons Immunity.
The messages kept coming.
"......."
Holding a perfectly straight face, I sent my reply.
Seo Ye-in had wound herself up in her blanket like a cocoon and dropped into a nap against my shoulder. I let her be, and in the lull decided to take stock of a few items in my possession—we'd be putting them to use in the next dungeon.
The [Rainbow Lake], which we'd be entering before long, was a multi-attribute dungeon. Fire, lightning, ice... the more elements at your command, the better your hand. Normally the ideal play was to assemble a party of elemental mages specializing in different attributes, but from the position of sneaking in, such luxuries were off the table. I could hardly drag Song Cheon-hye down to the Underground Floors just because I happened to need lightning.
Even so, there did exist a way to borrow at least a measure of the lightning attribute.
Two rough, pitted orbs that looked as though bolts of lightning had been forcibly mashed together and sealed inside—banned items, lifted during our break-in at the Temporary Confiscation Storage.
The Heart Thunder Jade lodged lightning within the heart—that is, the [Core]—for a set period of time, during which every spell its user cast was converted to the lightning attribute. Activate the Jade and then throw an Inferno Fist, and your fist of flame became a fist of thunder.
Up to that point it sounded reasonably handy—but there was a reason the Heart Thunder Jade carried a banned item designation. Keep hammering a heart with electric shocks, and a small but real chance of mishap remained.
As in, the heart could simply stop.
A temporary attribute conversion wasn't worth gambling a life on. Naturally, I was the exception. I happen to have trusty Elemental Resistance. I could use the Heart Thunder Jade without a sliver of worry over elemental penalties—which was, in fact, the very reason I'd plucked it from the storage in the first place. The upshot: fire, lightning, ice, and wind. Four attributes, secured.
Next, the items earmarked for my trade with the Crow Tailor. Gems for the labor fee—rubies, emeralds, and the like—went without saying. On top of those, I planned to add one more item.
▷ Obtain a C-rank material of your choice.
A voucher earned as a side-quest reward, after we brought the conquest battle against Song Cheon-hye's defense to a successful close. About time this saw some use, too.
The rank was capped at C at the very most, which made it rather wasteful to spend on main materials like ingots or cloth—any equipment forged from them would need replacing before long. Which meant what I intended to claim was something auxiliary.
A consumable material.
Not something that went directly into the craft itself, but the kind of material that granted a bonus on top. I scrolled briskly down the list, and before long my selection was made.
[Chapter 212: The Support Ate It All]